To the
narrator,symbolizes the beauty, mystery, and romance he longs for in his life. He lives in a
dreary house on a shabby dead-end street. He escapes the drabness around him by reading a Sir
Walter Scott romance and a book of French adventures and by dreaming. When he hears the name
"Araby," the very word thrills him: He says, "The syllables of the word
Araby . . . cast an Eastern enchantment over me." His first-love
obsession with Mangan's sister melds with his vision of Araby when she speaks to him of the
bazaar. He's off on a knight's romantic quest to bring her a gift from the enchanted land, only
to have his dreams crushed under the weight of reality.
Araby turns out to be
tawdry. It is not a place of enchantment; it is a cavernous warehouse filled with cheap goods
sold by ordinary people holding banal conversations in common English accents. Stalls are
closed. Two men are busy counting money. There will be no enchanting gift to present to his
love, and no more romantic illusions will illuminate his life. He will remain trapped in the
poverty and hopelessness of Dublin's North Richmond Street.
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